• 2 As to the expediency of capital punish ment. This opens a wide field for discussion. Some able men who do not doubt the right do still deny the expediency of inflicting it. It may be admitted that a wise legislature ought to be slow in affixing such a punishment to any but very enormous and dangerous crimes. The frequency of a crime is not of itself a sufficient reason for resorting to such a punishment. It should be a crime of great atrocity and danger to society, and one which cannot otherwise be effectually guarded against. In affixing punish ments to any offense, we should consider what are the objects and ends of punishment. It is dear that capital punishment can have no effect in reforming the offender himself. It may have, and ordinarily does have, the effect of deterring others from committing a like offense; but still, human experience shows that even this punishment, when inflicted for small offenses, which are easily perpetrated, and to which there is great temptation, does not always operate as an effectual terror. Men are some times hardened by the frequent spectacles of capital punishments and grow indifferent to them. Familiarity deprives them of their horror. The bloodiest codes are not those which have most effectually suppressed offenses. Be sides, public opinion has great weight in pro ducing the acquittal or condemnation of offenders. If a punishment be grossly dispro portionate to the offense, if it shock human feelings, there arises, insensibly, a sympathy for the victim and a desire to screen him from punishment; so that, as far as certainty of pun ishment operates to deter from crimes, the ob ect of the legislature is often thus defeated. It may be added that a reasonable doubt may fairly be entertained whether any society can lawfully exercise the power of punishing be yond what the just exigencies of that society require. On the other hand, a total abolition of capital punishments would, in some cases at least, expose society to the risk of vital injuries. A man who has committed murder deliberately has proved himself unfit for society and regardless of all the duties which belong to it. The safety of society is most effectually guarded by cutting him off from the power of doing further mischief. If his life be not taken away, the only other means left are confinement for life or trans portation and exile for life. Neither of these is a perfect security against the commission of other crimes, and may not always be within the power of a nation without great inconvenience and great expense to itself. It is true that the latter punishments leave open the chance of reform to the offender, which is indeed but too often a mere delusion; but, on the other hand; they greatly diminish the influence of another salutary principle, the deterring of others from committing like crimes. It seems to us therefore that it is difficult to maintain the proposition that capital punishments are at all times and under all considerations inex pedient. It may rather be affirmed that in some cases they are absolutely indispensable to the safety and good order of society. Some states have, however, entirely abolished capital pun ishment, as is the case in Holland, Rumania, Portugal, a certain number of the Swiss can tons, and some States of the American Union, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Rhode Island and Kansas. It was entirely abolished in Switzerland in 1874, but a few years after, owing to the increase of murders, it was again made permissible. It was also for a time done away with in Austria and in one or two of the States of this country, while in Russia it was abolished in 1750, only to be revived for politi cal offenses when the Revolutionary agitators became numerous. It was again abolished in 1917 by the Revolutionary government.
3. As to the crimes to which capital pun ishments may most properly be limited. From what has been already said it is plain that this must depend upon the particular circumstances of every age and nation; and much must be left to the exercise of a sound discretion on the part of the legislature. As a general rule humanity forbids such punishments to be ap plied to any but crimes of very great enormity and danger to individuals or the state. If any crimes can be effectually suppressed by mod erate means, these ought certainly to be first resorted to. The experience, however, of most nations, if we may judge from the nature and extent of their criminal legislation, seems to disprove the opinion so often indulged by phi lanthropists that capital punishments are wholly unnecessary. The codes of most civilized na tions used to abound with capital punishments. That of Great Britain long continued to be very' sanguinary. Blackstone, in his 'Commentaries,' admits that in his time not less than 160 crimes were, by the English law, punishable with death. Forgery was one of these up to the reign of William IV. The only crimes for which capital punishment may now be inflicted, according to the law of England, are high treason and mur der. The law in Scotland is substantially the same, a sentence of capital punishment now i being competent only in cases of treason, mur der and attempts to murder in certain cases. By United States statutes nine crimes are so punishable, including treason, murder, arson, rape, piracy and robbery of the maiL In several States of the Union still fewer crimes are gen erally punishable with death. Beyond treason,
murder, arson, piracy, highway robbery, bur glary, rape and some other offenses of great enormity and of a kindred character, it is ex tremely questionable whether there can be ne cessity or expediency in applying so great a severity. Beccaria, with characteristichu manity and sagacity, has strongly urged that the certainty of punishment is more important to deter from crimes than the severity of 4. As to the manner of inflicting the punish ment of death. This has been different in dif ferent countries, and in different stages of civi lization in the same countries. Barbarous nations are generally inclined to severe ( and vindictive punishments; and, where they punish .with death, to aggravate it by prolonging the sufferings of the victim with ingenious devices in cruelty. And even in civilized countries, in cases of a political nature or of very great atrocity, the punishment has been sometimes in flicted with many horrible accompaniments. Tearing the criminal to pieces, piercing his breast with a pointed pole; pinching to death with red-hot pincers; starving to death; break ing his limbs upon the wheel; pressing to death in a slow and lingering. ; burning at the stake; crucifixion; sawing to pieces; quartering alive; exposure to wild beasts; and other sav age punishments, have been sometimes resorted to for the purposes of vengeance, public ex ample or public terror. Compared with these the infliction of death by drowning, strangling, poisoning, bleeding, beheading, shooting or hanging is a moderate punishment. In modern times public opinion is strongly disposed to dis countenance the punishment of death by any but simple means; and the infliction of torture is almost universally reprobated. Even in gov ernments where it is still countenanced by the laws it is rarely resorted to; and the sentence is remitted, by the policy of the government, beyond the simple infliction of death. In Prus sia, where atrocious criminals were required by the penal code to be broken upon the wheel, the King latterly used always to issue an order to the executioner to strangle the criminal (which was done by a small cord not easily seen) before his limbs were broken. So in the same country, where robbery attended with destruction of life was punished by burning alive, the faggots were so arranged as to form a kind of cell in which the criminal was suffocated by the fumes of sul phur, or other means, before the flame could reach him. Not only is torture now abolished by civilized nations, but even the infliction of capital punishment inpublic has been given up by most of them. In England, in high treason, the criminal is sentenced to be drawn to the gallows, to be hanged by the neck until he be dead, to have his head cut off, and his body divided into four parts, and these to be at the disposal of the Crown. But, generally, all the punishment is remitted by the Crown, except the hanging and beheading, and these too may be altogether remitted according to circum stances. In other cases the punishment is now simply by hanging, or, in the military and naval service, by shooting. In France formerly the punishment of death was often inflicted by breaking the criminal on the wheel. The usual punishment now is beheading by the guillotine. In 1853 a kind of guillotine (Fallschwert) was introduced into the kingdom of Saxony, and it has since been adopted as the means of execu tion in several other German states. In Aus tria the general mode of punishment is by hanging. In Prussia hanging is rarely inflicted; but the usual punishment is beheading with a heavy axe, the criminal's head being first tied to a block. In one or two German states execu tion by the sword still exists. It should be remarked, however, that in Germany hanging has always been deemed the most infamous sort of punishment ; and the sentence has often been commuted for beheading by the sword as a milder or less dishonorable mode of punishment. In the United States of America hanging is the almost universal mode of capital punish meat, though electrocution has been adopted in New York and Massachusetts, and several other States. The Constitution of the United States contains a provision against and unusual punishments.) In China decapitation by the sword is the usual form : murderers are cut to pieces; robbers not. In Russia the punishment of death was until 1917 frequently inflicted by the knout In Turkey strangling and sewing the criminal up in a bag, and throwing him into the sea, are common modes of punishment. In the Roman code many severe and cruel punishments were prescribed. During the favored times of the republic many of these were abolished or mitigated. But again, under the emperors, they were revived with full severity. In the ancient Grecian states the modes of punishment were also severe and often cruel. The ancient Greek mode of capital pun ishment by taking poison at such hour as the condemned party should choose, seems never to have been in use among any Christian people.